


In Bloom

by peachsoul



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M, Unrequited Love, hahahah fuck me you know, i'm only slightly sorry, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 04:25:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13380141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachsoul/pseuds/peachsoul
Summary: And because sometimes life really isn’t fair, you fall in love with a boy who lives 54 miles away from you, who doesn’t love you back, and who you still love so much even after everything.





	In Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha oh man, this sucks so bad, and I am so sorry. I just had a lot of feelings after watching that interview Nico gave before the game against the Flyers where the reporters asked him about facing Nolan for the first time, and thus this came to be. 
> 
> I listened to "I've Given Up on You" by Real Friends on repeat while writing this, so have a listen if you want the FULL emo mood. 
> 
> If you found this by googling yourself, or you know someone written about in this story, exit now please and thank you. This is all a story of fiction.

The problem is that Nolan had been so sure that this  _ thing _ he had for Nico would just go away, just as quick as it came.

 

Nolan has also never claimed to be the smartest guy on the planet.

 

So his thing for Nico doesn’t just go away overnight with 54 miles and a one hour and four minute drive between them. And, that’s just the problem.

 

Everything had been so easy over the summer between the Top prospects game and the combine and draft activities, Nolan had spent half of his summer all up close and personal with Nico.

 

He got to wake up next to Nico on the rare occasions that the boy would pass out on Nolan’s hotel bed, too exhausted from the whirlwind that was going on around them to even get through 20 minutes of The Notebook before passing out on Nolan’s shoulder. 

 

(Which, Nolan blames Glasser for suggesting Nico watch the movie to begin with. Nolan had not wanted to sit in his hotel room watching a cheesy romance movie when his head was so fucked up about how much he wanted to touch Nico all the time.)

 

Nolan knows now that Nico mumbles in his sleep and that he gets handsy when he’s half awake easily draping a warm arm over Nolan’s stomach in the middle of the night. 

 

Everything had been so easy over the summer. Easy to openly watch Nico’s chest rise and fall in the moments right before he woke up, and easy to marvel at his flushed cheeks, and the way his hair looked soft to the touch.

 

“Sorry for clinging to you, and if I drooled on you…” Nico would say, arm still draped over Nolan ,and pawing the sleep out of his eyes with his free hand.

 

“Don’t worry about it.” Nolan would say, fiercely resisting the urge to reach up and run his fingers through Nico’s hair, because, that’s just not bros.

 

Nolan realized too late that he should have been the one worrying. 

 

Nolan had also gotten the countless summer afternoons with Nico. The afternoons where the media team would finally release them, and Nolan would stand in his uncomfortable suit in some random hallway in some building, listening to the other boys holler at each other, making plans about where to eat or if someone could manage to sneak a handle of vodka up into one of the hotel rooms.

 

Nico would immediately gravitate towards Nolan in these moments, standing shoulder to shoulder under the dingy lights of the hallway….as if saying,  _ wherever you go, I will be sure to follow. _

 

Nolan just wished that Nico had kept following. Or maybe he never actually was.

 

Nolan wasn't sure of anything that happened with Nico over the course of the summer leading up to the draft. Everything about Nico had been so fleeting and so beautiful, and he made Nolan feel...calm, amidst all the chaos and commotion around them.

 

“You’re thinking too much Patrick.” The Swiss boy said while plopping down on the small couch next to Nolan in Casey’s hotel room the  night before the draft. Most  of the boys had crammed into the hotel room, shouting over each other about what to order for room service. 

 

And how could Nolan  _ not think _ , how could he just ignore the fact that, regardless of anything, his life was going to be forever changed when the sun rose the next morning. 

 

The worries he had about going number one and where he would go to, and what people would say and think about him afterwards, had changed over the course of those few months. Nolan would never say it, but it didn’t really matter to him because wherever he went, Nico would not follow him there either way.

 

And in that stupidly cramped hotel room with a handful of boys cramming into each other's space and yelling about pizza or pasta at the top of their lungs, with Nico touching him from shoulder to thigh, so close that Nolan couldn’t even tell whose body heat he was feeling.

 

Nolan realized then that he...liked Nico...in a really dangerous way. 

 

“Do you think they know they could just order both things?” Nolan had said instead, swallowing the realization that he felt rising in his throat, or it might have been actual vomit, who knows. 

 

Nico had laughed at that and rested his head on Nolan’s shoulder, he had been doing that a lot lately, and it always made Nolan’s stomach flip when he could smell Nico, the smell of mint gum and his apple scented shampoo, making Nolan feel the good side of hazy.

 

“Don’t worry so much tonight...you’re going to be great.” Nolan had watched in fascination as Nico reached out to turn over Nolan’s hand that had been gripping his own thigh unknowingly, and squeezed it briefly before getting off the couch and walking back over to the group of boys.

 

“What does Nolan want, Hisch?” Nolan heard Kailer ask Nico, it sounded a bit like they were all underwater though….everything so fleeting and Nolan could feel a headache forming behind his eyes.

 

“He doesn’t know.” 

 

And if that just wasn’t the most ironic thing ever. 

 

So Nolan had kept everything he felt for Nico buried deep down inside. Which got harder once  he was aware of everything that had been simmering inside. 

 

The draft came and went and he hugged Nico when he went first overall, and he hugged his family when he went second overall and squeezed his mom who was crying lightly into his ear, telling him how proud she was of him. He shook so many hands and he smiled for so many cameras it felt like his face was going to get stuck like that. 

 

And he watched Nico from across the room getting interviewed, crowded by antsy reporters waiting to ask him the same generic questions. Red jersey making his already flushed cheeks stand out even more. Nolan wanted so much he didn’t even know what to do with himself.

 

Then the summer was ending before Nolan even had time to catch his breath. The understanding that he was going to have a new life once fall hit, settled uneasy in Nolan’s stomach. 

 

Nolan had decided somewhere between watching Nico pack his stuff up in the hotel room the morning after the draft, and the short goodbye that promised getting together before they both went their separate ways, that he needed to say something, that he needed so fiercely for Nico to know everything.

 

“Tell me it’s a bad idea.” Nolan had choked out down the line to Madison hours before he was set to meet Nico for a quick lunch before they both had to catch a flight that was going to seperate them for awhile, and that was even if the Flyers decided to keep him up.

 

“You’re making yourself sick over it Nolan...maybe it’s for the best that you just lay it all out there.” Madison had sounded like she genuinely pitied Nolan, and he hated it, the words of comfort twisting into something nasty in his chest. 

 

Regardless of the fact that his hands were shaking fiercely after he ended the call with Madison and his heart felt like it was about to run out of his chest, Nolan knew, he needed to do this, if for anything, he knew he needed to do it for himself.

 

And so he had dinner with Nico and he willed his hands to stop fucking  _ shaking  _ so hard, and for a few hours Nolan could just sit and watch Nico.

 

He memorised  the sound of his laughter when Nolan would say something that was objectively not that funny. He admired the sweet and bashful smile that crossed his face everytime Nolan assured him he was going to kill it in New Jersey.

 

And looking back on that night in that overpriced Italian restaurant Nolan realized that he might have loved Nico, he thinks he did. He knows he did. 

 

And that’s the worst part. Because life is not always fair.

 

Because sometimes you kiss the boy you might, probably, most definitely are in love with outside an entirely overpriced restaurant with nothing but the night and the noise of cars passing by surrounding you, and he doesn’t kiss you back.

 

No, instead he stands stock still with his hands fisted into your shirt, a look of pain and confusion  his eyes, and he doesn’t say a word for a whole 3 minutes and you feel the bile rising in your throat because he’s stepping away from you while wiping his lips.

 

“We can’t Nolan. You’re my friend...we’re friends.” Nico had said, eyes focused on a crack in the middle of the sidewalk, refusing to look up at Nolan.

 

And Nolan was almost thankful because he thought that if he had to bare one more second of looking at the pain in Nico’s eyes, he might actually throw up right then and there on some random sidewalk in the middle of the city.

 

And _ fuck _ . 

 

“Yeah...uh...yeah. I’m so sorry. I just, I needed to do...something. We can forget about it, it was silly.” Nolan had said, digging his fingernails into his thighs, so hard that he could feel them dig into his skin, even underneath his jeans. 

 

“We’re still friends Nolan. Don’t worry okay?” Nico had talked to him like he was talking to a scared animal that he was afraid was going to attack him any second. 

 

Nolan had nodded with his lips between his teeth, trying to draw blood and focus the pain somewhere else but the middle of his  _ fucking _ chest. 

 

And just like that, summer ended and they went their separate ways, Nolan receiving a simple text from Nico before he boarded his flight. 

 

_ You’ll do great. See you on the ice Nolan :) _

 

Nolan deleted the message thread without responding, and ignored the sympathetic looks coming from his sisters.

 

He had lived without Nico for 18 years of his life, he would learn to do it all over again. 

 

Nolan could pretend things were okay by pushing himself extra hard during workouts, and getting onto the ice as much as he possibly could, he was in the NHL now and he couldn’t let that slip through his fingers just because his heart felt like it was physically aching in the middle of the night sometimes.

 

He couldn’t let himself lose hockey too.

 

And so Nolan took it day by day, watching New Jersey play whoever on the days that he didn’t have a game himself and he watched Nico light it up with Taylor  _ fucking _ Hall and Jesper Bratt and he pretended it didn’t ache when the camera zoomed in on Nico’s blinding smile while Hall was crushing him into the glass after a goal. 

 

He’s okay, he can handle seeing Nico happy. Jesus, he wants Nico to be so damn happy. 

 

But then Nico gives an interview before the Devils face the Flyers, and of course it hadn’t slipped Nolan’s mind that this was going to be the first time they face against each other since the Top prospect game...and since Nolan kissed Nico, so the questions wasn’t exactly a surprise.

 

“I know it’s never about two players, but there is some interest. Your first game against Nolan Patrick, have you given that much thought?” The reporter had asked, and Nolan held his breath.

 

“No.” Nolan had watched, entire body going slightly cold, as Nico spoke with a small smile on his face and a finality to his tone.

 

And because sometimes life  _ really _ isn’t fair, you fall in love with a boy who lives 54 miles away from you, who doesn’t love you back, and who you still love so much even after everything.

 

“I got to know him really well, and for me, he’s a great kid, I really like to hang out with him. And I’m happy to see him tomorrow, but on the ice, we’re not gonna be friends. But for sure, I will say hi after the game.” Nico said after some more prodding from the reporter, a casualness to his demeanor that Nolan had always been jealous of, and was now making him gag right then and there in his bedroom, all alone. 

 

Nico had been Summer, all warm and the feeling of freedom and serenity coursing through Nolan’s veins when they brushed against each other accidently. He was the smell of clean sheets in random hotel rooms in Chicago, and waking up to the sunshine hitting his face, with Nico’s face tucked into his shoulder, warm breath tickling Nolan’s jaw.  Nico had been  the calming voice in his head reminding him to,  _ Just have fun Nolan, it’s Summer, _ when everything was getting to be too much.

 

But, Summer always has to come an end, the heat twisting into a bitter cold.

  
And,  _ God _ , Nolan had just wished he had been more prepared for that. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yikes.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed it and it wasn't too horrendously written. Much love, and many smooches to you all.
> 
> You can also find me @ sventeens on tumblr if you'd like. ~~~~~~~~


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